Ashton Kutcher leaves Sound Ventures to launch new VC firm focused on AI infrastructure

Ashton Kutcher leaving Sound Ventures to launch new VC firm with Morgan Beller

Ashton Kutcher is stepping away from Sound Ventures -- the firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago -- to start a separate VC fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. TechCrunch had separately heard that Kutcher was preparing to leave; the WSJ's report confirms it and adds new detail on his plans with Beller. The actor and investor's new firm is being co-founded with Morgan Beller -- its name hasn't been made public yet -- who until recently was a general partner at seed-focused VC outfit NFX and previously co-led cryptocurrency project Libra at Meta. Beller also spent nearly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Kutcher's exit doesn't appear to be a sign of trouble at Sound Ventures -- investors more often leave firms that are underperforming, and that's not the case here. The firm, which has backed companies like Brex and Gusto, was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Fei-Fei Li's World Labs. The split is also notable for what it signals about where AI money is heading next: Sound built its reputation on concentrated, high-conviction bets in category-leading AI labs, while Kutcher's new fund appears to be chasing the layer underneath those companies -- the infrastructure and energy that power them. "He and his fund consistently make it onto [my] rankings of top unicorn investors. An interesting case!" Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev, who tracks top-performing VCs, wrote on X. The actor has known OpenAI's Sam Altman since Altman founded Loopt -- years before the launch of the ChatGPT maker. Kutcher's departure was partly due to different views on which startup stages to target for investments, with Sound leaning toward backing companies that are already more established, rather than betting on very early-stage startups, according to WSJ. Kutcher and Beller are focused on making early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech startups -- startups built around hard science and engineering breakthroughs rather than software alone. Despite leaving Sound Ventures, Kutcher will continue to serve as an advisor to the firm. Meanwhile, Oseary and Sound general partner Effie Epstein will advise Kutcher and Beller's new firm.

Dude, Where's My Founder? Ashton Kutcher Leaves VC Firm and Shows Which Way the Wind Is Blowing

Well-known Hollywood actor and lesser-known Silicon Valley investor Ashton Kutcher is leaving the venture capital firm he co-founded more than a decade ago, as he pivots to new bets on the resources and tech needed to support AI. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Kutcher is stepping away from Sound Ventures to start a new firm with Morgan Beller. Beller recently served as a general partner at venture firm NFX and previously helped create Meta's cryptocurrency project Libra. A spokesperson for Kutcher told the newspaper that the two "are working together on an early-stage venture capital firm that will be focused on investing in a post-AGI world." The move signals where at least some venture capital money may be headed next, away from the AI labs building frontier models and toward the data centers and energy projects needed to keep them growing. Conveniently, if the AI bubble ever bursts, some of those physical assets could still have uses beyond AI, making them a safer bet. "Now is the right time for me to pursue the next wave of innovation -- infrastructure, energy and deep tech," Kutcher wrote in a letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal that Sound Ventures shared with its limited partners in May. Deep tech generally refers to companies built around major scientific or engineering breakthroughs rather than just software. That can include areas like quantum computing, nuclear energy, aerospace, and robotics. This would be a new direction for Kutcher. The actor founded Sound Ventures with Guy Oseary, the longtime manager of Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, in 2015. An unnamed source told The Wall Street Journal that the firm manages close to $2 billion. Sound Ventures has invested in fintech companies like Brex, which serves businesses, and the buy-now, pay-later company Affirm. It has also backed the software development platform GitLab. More recently, Sound Ventures has deployed more than $800 million into positions in Anthropic, OpenAI, and world-model startup World Labs, according to the letter sent to limited partners. Inc. reported earlier this year that a leaked document revealed that Sound Ventures has 0.15% stake in OpenAI valued at $1.3 billion. "He and his fund consistently make it onto our rankings of top unicorn investors. An interesting case!" wrote Ilya Strebulaev, founder and director of the Venture Capital Initiative at Stanford University, on X about Kutcher's exit. But it appears one reason for the split is that Kutcher no longer wants to stick with Sound's strategy of backing more established companies. The letter said Kutcher and the Sound Ventures team had different visions that would require "different capital structures, different time horizons and different operational resources." Sound Ventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kutcher's decision to leave the firm and pursue investments in infrastructure is another sign that some investors believe the next big opportunity in AI goes beyond the labs. It may be the massive infrastructure buildout needed to support them. Even companies like Meta and SpaceX are working on leasing out their own data centers as they figure out whether their respective side hustles in AI are a fool's errand.

Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures to start a new VC firm with Morgan Beller

Ashton Kutcher is leaving Sound Ventures, the firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago, to start a new venture capital firm with Morgan Beller, according to TechCrunch. The new firm will target early-stage investments in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech, areas where Kutcher believes the next generation of transformative companies will be built. The split is partly strategic. Sound Ventures has drifted toward later-stage deals over the years, while Kutcher wants to return to backing founders at the earliest stages. The new firm's name has not been disclosed, and neither has its fund size. Beller brings a resume that spans some of the most prominent names in technology and venture capital. She co-led the creation of Libra, Meta's cryptocurrency project that was later renamed Diem and eventually shut down. She then spent roughly three years as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz before joining NFX as a general partner. Kutcher's track record as a technology investor has long outpaced his Hollywood reputation. Sound Ventures backed OpenAI and Anthropic before either company became a household name, alongside Brex, Gusto, and World Labs, the AI company founded by Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li. Stanford finance professor Ilya Strebulaev praised Kutcher's investing record on X after the news broke, calling it one of the strongest in venture capital over the past decade. The departure is amicable, at least on paper. Kutcher will continue to advise Sound Ventures, while Oseary and Effie Epstein, Sound's third general partner, will serve as advisers to the new firm. Sound Ventures manages more than one billion dollars in assets and will continue operating under Oseary's leadership. The timing puts Kutcher and Beller in a crowded field. Founders Fund just closed a six billion dollar growth fund focused on AI and defence technology, Accel raised five billion dollars for late-stage AI bets, and Eclipse closed over one billion dollars for early-stage deep tech and physical industries. The first quarter of 2026 saw a record 297 billion dollars flow into startups globally. What distinguishes the new firm, at least in theory, is the combination of early-stage focus and sector specificity. Most of the mega-funds competing for AI deals are writing hundred-million-dollar checks into companies that have already proven product-market fit. Kutcher and Beller are betting that the better opportunity is upstream, backing the infrastructure and energy companies that those later-stage AI giants will depend on, though whether a firm without a public name or disclosed fund size can compete against established deep tech investors remains the open question.